Hello September

Summer, where did you go?

No pictures today, and I know I have to finish posting about our trip to Avignon, but my computer hard drive is too full for more photos, and I haven't had the time to shuffle things onto the portable hard drive yet. Plus, the lovely photos from hot, sunny Avignon will be so much better once we get back into the doldrums of our work routines, right?

Anyway, you can tell that the summer is over here in Paris. When we returned from Russia in the middle of August, the city was dead. I could go running and rarely have to stop at an intersection there were so few people. It was lovely. But ever since last weekend, slowly but surely people have been returning from whatever sunny spot they spent their holidays, and Paris is coming alive again. Kids running you over with their trotinettes, cars and people making running at any hour past 7am difficult (hence this blog post...:) ), restaurants and bakeries opening their doors again after a month of closure (well, that's one good thing). We got our income tax statement today, asking us to pay the balance, and I figure that's a sign that even the fonctionnaires have gone back to work. And it's getting dark sooner, around 9pm at the moment, and I'm already missing our long summer days. I'm already dreading the Sunday in October (or November? I should really look into that) when we'll turn the clocks back and get to leave for work in the pitch dark. I have never understood the logic of daylight savings. It's just depressing.

Yes, it's la rentree tomorrow for most public schools, and on Friday for me. Erik and I reluctantly dragged ourselves back to work last Thursday. I have to admit that I do like the familiarity of the routine and am looking forward to meeting my class in a couple of day, but I am already missing having a trip just around the corner to anticipate, and the luxury of not having to wear a watch or set the alarm clock at night.

I guess the summer has to end at some point so that we can actually appreciate what we did, but I'm still allowed to be grumpy about it, right?

And with that, I'm off for my run. No more excuses :) I'll try and get some photos up next week.